My friend Milena of An Englishmen’s Guide to the Efteling has written a review of the newly refurbished rooms at Bosrijk. Here are her thoughts on the newly renovated rooms…
Here follows my review of my stay at one of the freshly refurbished Bosrijk rooms at New Years.

The new rooms do look a lot like the designs they had worked up only the sofa is different.

Our room – and I assume all of the standard family rooms – had a modern grey sofa rather than the leather sofa you see in the pictures. though I believe the VIP rooms do get the leather sofa you see in the designs https://youtu.be/VRx5WlbeVUQ?t=71
I much prefer this type of sofa as I have always found leather sofas to be cold to the touch.
The grey sofa is more comfortable than it looks. It is however unfortunately placed.

The sofa is situated on the left of the TV rather than across it. Even though the new TV has been mounted on an extendable arm it still means you have to tilt your head to watch the TV which gives you a sore neck pretty quickly.
You can sit in the two arm chairs instead which are across from the TV but you can’t really sit together so it’s not very cosy.
It also means the window is partially blocked by the sofa so it really doesn’t make much sense. It would look much nicer the other way around and it would be much more comfortable and make much more sense.
Under the TV in the cabinet you’ve got the mini fridge which is useful. We used it to store leftover salad that we had ordered. But I imagine in summer it would be great for cooling water bottles or sandwiches. Some people may need a cool place to store medicines or breast milk too so it’s a very useful feature.

You also get 4 tea cups, 4 glasses, 4 wine glasses and 4 tea spoons.
The cabinet also contains a kettle and a coffee machine that only takes capsules.
On the first night we wanted to make ourselves a cup of tea so we got the kettle out and started looking around for outlets.

The one under the sideboard at the foot of the bed seemed the obvious choice but when we tried to plug it in the lead wouldn’t reach.
The bedside table plugs were no good because the steam would get in the lights.
We didn’t want to put the kettle on the floor so the hallway one was no good.
The top socket plug next to the TV had what looked like a modem plugged in it so we didn’t want to mess with that and one of the standing lights was plugged into the second one.

We decided to sacrifice the light. The lead only just barely reached and the kettle blocked the TV screen a bit but we got to have our cuppa.
So yeah not sure if we missed something obvious but otherwise maybe they could look into getting new kettles with longer leads to go with the new rooms?

The TV itself was good but a DVD player could be a useful addition.
The new coffee table opens up, presumably so that you can store the throw pillows in it if you don’t need them. Otherwise it’s quite small and not very useful. Since they got rid of the table there is no where good to eat your pizza.
Perhaps a better idea would be to get a convertible coffee table like IKEA TRULSTORP so you don’t have to hunch over.

Speaking of the food delivery service, the pizza is great, the service is great and everything but there are still a few issues. There is no phone in the room so you are expected to use your own phone which could be quite pricey for us foreigners depending on your phone plan, in my case it meant a terrible connection.
Or you use your Efteling account but this means you can’t make any changes to the dish.

Reception has a phone you can use specifically to order pizza’s but the phone on the ground floor of the Landhuys is for emergencies only.
So adding phones to the room or a phone to the building for pizza ordering would be received gratefully.
As the new rooms no longer come with crockery or cutlery you are provided with a plastic knife and fork. This is quite a wasteful way to go about it and maybe they could look into providing real cutlery and just taking it away to be washed along with the cups as part of the cleanup.
You are also provided with a large paper bag in which you are supposed to put your rubbish.

You are then to hang the bag on your door hook to prevent the room from getting smelly.

I’m not sure if this is a temporary method as I would think trash removal should be a part of the new daily cleaning service?
There are no longer microwaves in the room but on the ground floor they have installed two microwaves for the guests to use.

At the moment the cleaning service is quite sporadic, they are still getting used to it. We got a new set of clean towels wrapped in plastic left in our room every day. Though only once were the old towels taken away. On that day they also took our bath mat and never returned it.

Perhaps they could put a note in the bathroom, as many hotels do that says that if you want fresh towels to put the old ones on the floor. That way they aren’t washing towels unnecessarily and wasting water or bringing fresh towels that are not needed.
Or you could just leave a bunch of spare fresh towels in the cupboard since they are wrapped in plastic anyway.
They are also supposed to make the beds every day but this was only done once or twice during our stay. Personally I hate a made bed but it’s a service that is included in the cost so I’m mentioning it.
The cups and glasses we used were not cleaned, we asked reception if this was supposed to be part of the service and they told us that they will start doing that from the 6th of Jan but they could give us clean cups there and then if we wanted.
Personally I dislike daily cleaning services as it feels like a bit of an invasion of my space and a reminder that the room I’m staying in is not mine. It also feels less secure.
It would be great if we could ‘opt out’ of the cleaning service. Perhaps by use of a door card like the ‘Do not disturb’ hangers many hotels provide to hang on the door knob. It would be cool if you could customise it with sliders for if you want fresh towels or clean cups. E.G.:

The bathroom has sandman themed hand soap dispensers, shampoo and bodywash dispensers and a hairdryer which are all very useful. They had started integrating them in the old rooms too which was great. Otherwise nothing has changed about the bathroom.

The Villeroy & Bosch bath is still huge and awesome, the Grohe shower still has fabulous water pressure and temperature control. The sink is huge with it’s only fault being the tap which is a standard hot & cold turn mixer tap rather than a hot & cold lever mixer tap.

The separate WC is still exactly the same. It has a toilet and a sink with a single cold tap, toilet roll holder and a few rolls of spare toilet paper. There is STILL no hand soap dispenser or hook in the WC which renders the sink pretty much useless since you will have to go into the bathroom to use the soap and towel anyway. This is something that has been missing since the very beginning and every time I visit I think they surely it will be there this time. So yes, hand soap and hook PLEASE, and a mixer tap if they can swing it but that would be an expensive change I’m sure. While we’re dreaming maybe a little mobile phone shelf ?

The new bed is quite comfortable, the pillows and duvet are like fluffy clouds. I was however disappointed that there are still two separate single mattresses. This means someone is going to roll into a crack at some point. I get the sense the bed as a whole is much bigger though and the single mattresses tend to stay put. In the old bed the mattresses had a habit of sliding apart.
The bed covers are now a plain white rather than sandman themed which is a bit of a shame as I liked the way it made me feel like a big kid but I see the sense in it.
The kids bunk beds still get Sandman sheets.*jelly*
Overall I would say the bed is a big improvement though could be improved further with a double mattress or the addition of a double mattress topper.

The kids room has lost a lot of their character but do have a lot more space. I do miss the castle themed details.

The original room styling

The room has a little wardrobe in it with shelves and you still get the free storybook and night caps.

The night cap & book holder might not be positioned in the best place as a friend of mine told me that she hit her head pretty hard on it after tucking their kid in for the night.

You can get an english version of the book at reception which is super cool but it would be even better if they provided it in the room based on the language preference in your Efteling account.

It also looks like you can borrow a cuddly owl (Oehoe Houdoe) from reception which is a cute idea.

The baby cot no longer comes standard with the room and you now have to pay extra for it I’m told.

The slim wardrobe in the hallway has a space for hanging clothes, a safe and a cubby space. I don’t think the hanging space is big enough to hang dresses comfortably in summer so that is unfortunate for people who don’t like creases. Also when you open the wardrobe door you tap the light switch on the wall. So if you aren’t careful you end up turning the living room light off.
The sandman board game is now left out for you on the coffee table instead of hidden away in the kids room and is cleverly built into a tray rather than into a little table which makes rolling the dice and moving it around easy. The game is a type of Ganzenbord and is good fun. The pawns are lovely wooden pieces carved in the shape of woodland creatures. We never bothered to play it before so I’m not sure if this is a new thing.

You still get the hessian bag welcome set which contains sugar, creamer, 4 Lipton Yellow label tea bags, and 4 Nespresso coffee capsules. As part of the cleaning service it would be good if these were replenished as well?

We also got a little Amenities bag which contained shoe shine, a vanity kit, some lotion and a shower cap. The vanity kit contained 3 cotton buds, a nail file and some cotton wool pads. The Gold Body lotion from Italy was mentioned to be vegan friendly, paraben free, dermatologically tested and nickel free. It did not mention that it smells like old grandma perfume. So I love the thought since with the dry winter air I could do with some lotion, but maybe an unscented version might suit better plus it would be extra allergen friendly that way.

There is no longer an information book in the room which is a shame as it was quite useful. Lesser known things like the how the Laundry service works and that kids without a swimming diploma need floaties at the pool may fall by the wayside. Maybe they are still rewriting it?
Overall I really miss the more rustic style and the homey feel of the old apartments. They really felt like I was coming back to my home away from home.

The original room styling

The original room styling

The new design is less friendly, more posh and to me gives off a classic ‘ don’t get too comfortable’ hotel vibe. The old rooms were an affordable way for a couple or a small family to still get that that self catering homey feel without having to pay for a big house with lots of space they don’t need. The new rooms are a lot more like hotel rooms of which there were already two options to choose from.
Lots of pictures and a terrible video can be found on my website here.
The new rooms also mean that as well having a daily cleaning service you also now have the breakfast included in the now higher price. In other words you now pay for a cleaning service and breakfast buffet whether you want it or not. We don’t really need to eat much at breakfast so we were previously quite happy to buy a croissant from the shop to have for breakfast and saved some money that way.

Anyway money grumbles aside the breakfast spread was quite nice. Continental style rather than English obviously.

There were various cold meats and cheeses, chocolate and fruit sprinkles, peanut or hazelnut butters, jams and yoghurt, coco pops, muesli and granola, fresh bread and pastries, mini donuts, eierkoeken, full sandwiches with different fillings (there were no labels :-(), fruit and ontbijtkoeken. Cold boiled eggs, warm fried eggs, warm hollowed out bread buns with bacon and egg inside and hot scrambled eggs. There was even a little basket with gluten free bread things.

For drinks there was milk, Chocomel, Fristi, raspberry smoothie, apple juice. There was also tea and coffee though we avoided the tea as it’s the kind that uses plastic mesh tea bags which we recently learned leaches a whole lot of microplastics into you.

On busy days the staff would guide you to a free table.
Usually in the green house area
Red riding hood went round the tables and greeted the little children.

Overall a good experience. Breakfast changed slightly on different days, some things were available some days and not others but pretty good regardless.
Many pictures and another terrible video on my website here.

With thanks to Milena K.